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The Senate Intelligence Committee began hearings yesterday to inform Congress about the status of investigations into Donald Trump’s involvement in attacks against the United States by the Russian government last year. The hearings didn’t get very far, though, as officials from the Trump Administration repeatedly refused to answer the questions from the committee.

When Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and NSA Director Mike Rogers were asked if Donald Trump had requested them to suppress investigations into Trump’s involvement in the Russian attacks, Rogers refused to make any comment, and Coats only answered, “I am not prepared to go down that road right now.”

Of course Dan Coats was prepared to answer the question. He knows very well what Donald Trump asked him to do.

Dan Coats and Mike Rogers simply didn’t want to answer the question, and the Senate Intelligence Committee allowed them to get away with it. A serious Senate investigation would demand honest answers, under the threat of perjury, with an invocation of 5th amendment protection against self-incrimination the only non-response allowed.

That the Senate Intelligence Committee’s leadership is executing a whitewash rather than a serious investigation was made plain again when Senator Kamala Harris asked acting FBI Director Rod Rosenstein if he would grant special counsel Robert Mueller full independence in his investigation of Donald Trump’s collusion with Russian attacks. “Are you willing or are you not willing to give him the authority to be fully independent of your ability, statutorily or legally, to fire him?” Senator Harris asked.

Rod Rosenstein refused to answer the question, and when Senator Harris begin to insist that Rosenstein give her an answer, the leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee took the microphone away from her.

So, we’ve learned that Robert Mueller’s investigation isn’t going to be allowed full independence, while the Senate’s investigation won’t demand answers from Trump Administration officials. These investigations aren’t doing the hard work to get to the bottom of Donald Trump’s crooked relationships with the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin.

The only other investigation that’s active into the matter is that of the House Intelligence Committee, led by Devin Nunes, who promised to recuse himself from the investigation when it was revealed he was actually helping Donald Trump to cover it up. Now, we’ve learned that Nunes is still calling the shots behind the scenes, issuing subpoenas intended to intimidate potential witnesses, preventing them from testifying against Trump.

America has no independent, trustworthy investigation into the coverup of Donald Trump’s involvement with Russian attacks against the United States last year. It’s all a whitewash, intended to create the appearance of investigation, while actually protecting Trump from genuine scrutiny.

There will be no impeachment under the current Congress. The only way to get to the truth is to vote the Republicans in Congress out of office next year.

It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection. These are the times when maps fade, old landmarks crumble and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread. Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.